Put Your Money in a Swiss Bank.?
You must be joking.
Trust a Swiss Bank .?
Ask the Jews.
Swiss Bank Secrecy.
Bank Secrecy Covers:- all your business relations with the bank.
Protects all contacts with a view to opening an account, even if the account is never actually opened . It concerns all the people who work for the bank or in contact with it .
Any Banker who reveals information about you without your consent risks a custodial sentence.
Bank employees are subject to up to 50,000 francs fine and six months in jail should they disclose ??? any information??? on an account or an account holder .
For law enforcement to get ???Lifting Order??? they must first convince a ??? Swiss Judge.??? That you have committed a serious crime punishable by the Swiss Penal Code.
Bankruptcy. ??? Falls under Federal Law which provides for the recognition and application of foreign ruling in Switzerland. The bank account can be seized without difficulty .
The bank is under obligation to declare all property held for the account of the bankrupt debtor.
Swiss Criminal Code.
Article. 162. Swiss Criminal Code. Confidential Business Information.
Article. 320. Swiss Criminal Code. Occupational Confidentiality.
Article. 97. Swiss Criminal Code . ??? to compensate for damages
incurred for ??? violating its duty of secrecy.???
Fine and imprisonment for the banker pursuant to the banking act and criminal code.
Damages for the client pursuant to the duty of care.
*** The Swiss Public Attorney automatically begins prosecution as soon as the offence is made known. ( the exception being).
The Rolls Royce of Swiss Banks. ( Swizz Banks.)
Pictet & Cie.-------Mr.Ivan Pictet.
Pictet & Cie.- claim they are the ???Rolls Royce???of Swiss banks.
Swiss Banks or more correctly Swizz banks.
Swizz. ---- ??? a great disappointment.??? or a ??? fraud.???
Fraud. ---??? an intentional deception or dishonesty.?????? ???a crime.???
Crime. ---??? an act committed or omitted in violation of a law.???
Serious Crimes .
Conspiring to pervert the Course of Justice.
Perverting the Course of Justice.
Contempt of Court.
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Cracking the Vault
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Birkenfeld's job, it seems, was to fish for rich American clients. According to testimony he gave to Sen. Carl Levin's permanent subcommittee on investigations, which has been looking into UBS, Birkenfeld was a member of a big team ("around 25 people in Geneva, 50 people in Zurich and five to 10 in Lugano … a formidable force") of wealth prospectors. These "private bankers" would travel to the United States four to six times a year. "You might go to sporting events. You might go to car shows, wine tastings," Birkenfeld told the subcommittee. "You might deal with real-estate agents. You might deal with attorneys … It's really where do rich people hang out, go and talk to them … It wasn't difficult to walk into a party with a … business card, and then someone ask[s] you, 'What do you do?' and you say, 'Well, I work for a bank in Switzerland, and we manage money and open accounts.' And people immediately would recognize, 'Oh, this is someone who could open new business by opening accounts'." UBS did its part to foster such potentially profitable interchanges by sponsoring fancy events such as Art Basel, an annual major art show in Miami; performances in big American cities by the UBS Verbier Festival Orchestra, an ensemble of young Swiss virtuosos; and yachting regattas at which an elite Swiss boating team called Alinghi competed.
But UBS wanted prospectors such as Birkenfeld to be careful—to act, it seems, more like spies than bankers. A September 2006 UBS document cautions its bankers to "always maintain 'clear desk policy' in hotel rooms; use secure infrastructure (travel notebook, PDA); be aware that cell phones are prone to eavesdropping; cross borders without client-related documents." Other documents warn UBS bankers what to do if approached by the FBI: protect bank secrecy.
Birkenfeld told investigators UBS bankers would encourage their clients to misrepresent money transfers they received from UBS as loans, rather than taxable income; to destroy offshore banking records in U.S. files; and to use Swiss bank credit cards that supposedly could not be discovered by U.S. investigators. Birkenfeld took his client service into the realm of James Bond: he says he once transported diamonds, bought with client money abroad, into the United States in a tube of toothpaste.
Somewhere along the way—it's not clear when or how—Birkenfeld turned state's evidence. Documents indicate that he left UBS in 2005; the reason he reportedly gave was that he suspected his employer of illegality. On the bank's internal computer network, he discovered an incriminating document—a set of instructions that U.S. investigators now believe was part of UBS's tradecraft manual for bank representatives serving American clients. Birkenfeld may have already been talking to the authorities by then. In any case, he was caught in a difficult spot. Entering the United States last spring to attend his 25th high-school reunion, he was arrested by the Feds. Later he pleaded guilty to conspiring with Olenicoff to hide millions from the IRS in Switzerland and Liechtenstein. He has been cooperating with investigators in an effort to stay out of jail; he is due to be sentenced next month. Having been outed as a whistle-blower, he is in trouble in Switzerland, too: if he ever sets foot in his adopted country, he would likely face arrest and a lengthy prison term for violating the strict Swiss bank-secrecy laws. (Birkenfeld's lawyers declined to comment.)
The Feds have subpoenaed all of UBS's records on Americans with secret bank accounts. Threatened with criminal charges, UBS has admitted violating U.S. law, paying $780 million in a settlement and offering banking data on about 250 clients. But the bank has said that Swiss law forbids it to turn over information about the thousands of other secret accounts. Nonetheless, UBS told its American clients to close their accounts and take their money elsewhere. Conservative politicians in Switzerland have railed against what they say is a fishing expedition that violates Swiss banking laws and Swiss sovereignty. Bank secrecy is a point of cultural pride for the Swiss, and so the controversy seems unlikely to abate any time soon.
The Swiss government and Switzerland's tiny neighbor Liechtenstein are facing heavy scrutiny. Since 2001 both countries have tried to cooperate with intelligence services tracking terroristfinance networks. As the global economy melts down and public anger rises, the old ways of bank secrecy will become increasingly hard to defend (even as the wealthy look for safe places to hide their money). Last week, the governments of both Switzerland and Liechtenstein announced that they would share more tax-related information with foreign governments, but the Swiss still declared that "Swiss bank secrecy is maintained."
And as for Olenicoff? He had to pay $52 million in back taxes and penalties, but, according to Forbes, he is still worth $1.4 billion—a big enough nut for any Master of the Universe.
© 2009
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